Smarthome Launches Zigbee Rival Insteon

(Business News & Technology News, 10 Jul 2005)

Looking to take the market for home automation devices – one that it has controlled in the consumer space for quite some time – Smarthome is officially launching products that incorporate its new technology Insteon – a dual band technology that works over both RF and wired connections.
The company, known for its original X10 home automation technology targeted at tech-savvy consumers, will also be releasing developers kits for potential licensees, marking the first time that Smarthome will be licensing any of its technology. The developers kit costs $99 and includes all documentation, 2 pieces of hardware, 1 hour of free support and membership in the Insteon Developers Alliance, officials at the company said.
“Our goal with this technology is to get the home automation industry to a broad market,” said Rajeev Kapur, VP of sales. “The only way technology can reach the market is if its broadly available. From early on we decided this would be a near open standard -- like an mp3 license -- extremely inexpensive to gain and utilize.”
So far, the company’s broad channel strategy and approach to the consumer market has been working.
“We are only significant success story in what I’ll refer to as affordable home automation technology,” said CEO Joe Dada. Smarthome sells its products through retail stores and also through its direct channel to consumers, its web site. “There are three key points about Insteon: it is the least expensive and easiest to implement, it is the most reliable because it offers dual band, and within a few months we’ll have more nodes in the market than anyone else.”
Smarthome’s new technology will be going up against Zigbee and other technologies addressing the home automation market.
Initial devices in the Insteon portfolio will include paddle light switches, other lighting and appliance controllers and appliance and lighting remote controls. In addition every Insteon device is a repeater, so the more devices that are deployed in a location, the more reliable the network gets. The products are also backwards compatible with Smarthome’s X10 products.
Kapur said Smarthome’s chips are in the $3 range, while competitors' chips fall into the $4 to $5 range.
“Our chips and solution sets are both less expensive from get go,” he said. “We require less hardware, software and memory to run things, plus the BOM translates to significantly less.”